Act
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,' Oikawa says, all in a rush." Oikawa has a crisis and Iwaizumi can't act.


Iwaizumi should have expected this.

He spent the first three weeks at university worrying about Oikawa: whether he was sleeping enough, whether he was getting enough to eat, whether he was resting enough between practices. Oikawa is a walking invitation to crises of all sorts, Iwaizumi knows that too well from experience over all the years they've known each other, and while he knows the other is technically capable of taking care of himself that doesn't mean he's actually acting on that capability, especially if he's feeling anything like the levels of stress Iwaizumi encounters in the first few rounds of classes and homework and practice. Iwaizumi's the one who calls every night, late, after volleyball practice is done, while he's still sweat-sticky and overheated from the exertion, and Oikawa always answers, even when his voice sounds low and exhausted in a way Iwaizumi can't entirely blame on the phone connection. It twists Iwaizumi's heart in his chest, feels like a pressure crushing the air out of him, as if Oikawa took a part of Iwaizumi with him and Iwaizumi is feeling the pull across all the miles between him and the other. For the first few weeks it's only exhaustion that lets Iwaizumi fall asleep at night, and then it's only to topple into half-made nightmares of missed deadlines and injured knees and Oikawa, always Oikawa, just out of reach, just beyond his help. But then Oikawa's voice gains energy, and Oikawa's stories gain more life, and by the middle of the second month Iwaizumi is looking forward to his first in-person visit just for the pleasure of seeing an old friend and not from the need to check up on every aspect of Oikawa's life. There haven't been any crises that the other has told him about, nothing to occupy Iwaizumi's thoughts with worry on the long train ride to bring him to Oikawa's university; by the time he arrives he's looking forward to the first adrenaline of greetings, to the rush of hellos given in person instead of over a phone line, maybe to the satisfaction of a long-delayed dinner in Oikawa's apartment or out at some cheap restaurant. The weeks apart have been good for them, he thinks as he climbs the stairs to Oikawa's room and knocks against the door; Oikawa will have learned to take care of himself, to handle problems with some of the calm maturity that Iwaizumi has so often provided in his stead. It will be nice to see him calmer, more composed, more-

"Iwa-chan!" The voice is shrill, skidding up into the heights of panic even before Oikawa has dragged the door open to actually see Iwaizumi standing in the hallway. "Thank god you're here, I need your help!"

Iwaizumi should have known better.

" _What_?" He can feel his brows draw together into irritation, can feel his mouth pull heavy at the corners to fall into a scowl; at his sides the angle of his relaxed hands shifts, his fingers curling in on themselves to dig into the weight of fists instead. "I only just got off the train."

"I know," Oikawa says, and reaches out to catch his fingers around Iwaizumi's elbow and pull the other through the doorway and into the apartment. "But this is an emergency."

Iwaizumi glances around the apartment; but there's neither smoke nor fire, no indication of a spreading flood from a broken faucet or a leaky pipe. He looks back to Oikawa, who is now pulling at the shoulder strap of Iwaizumi's bag to urge it off his shoulder so he can deposit it in the entryway. His hair is more of a mess than usual, showing all the signs of anxious fingers pushing through the strands. Iwaizumi thinks it might be an inch longer than it was when he last saw it. He wonders if Oikawa has thought about getting a haircut. "I don't see any emergency."

"It's not one you can _see_ ," Oikawa says, straightening from dropping Iwaizumi's bag to fix the other with wide eyes and a hurt pout. Iwaizumi would be more susceptible to this particular maneuver if he hadn't been seeing it in various forms over the last decade; as it is it just makes his own scowl deepen at the corners of his mouth. Oikawa appears utterly unfazed by this; if anything he just opens his eyes wider and tips his head to the side so the light catches and melts into the dark color of them. "It's a personal issue, Iwa-chan, I need your help."

"No," Iwaizumi says, as a safety precaution. Oikawa's mouth starts to tremble. Iwaizumi's shoulders tense. "No way. I came here to visit you but if you're just going to dump your problems on me I'll go right back home." He turns towards the door again, making as if to reach for his bag, but Oikawa grabs at his arm with his second hand as well as the first, making a vice grip of his fingers so tight Iwaizumi hisses at the bruising force.

"You can't leave," Oikawa insists, his voice breaking over the heights of panic real or assumed straining in his throat. When Iwaizumi looks back at him his eyes are shining in the light with the threat of tears, his lips are drawn down into the weight of true misery. "I need you here, that's exactly why I need your help!"

Iwaizumi glares at Oikawa's shining eyes, at his trembling mouth, at the desperate set of his shoulders to keep the other inside the apartment. _I'm going to regret this_. "What do you need?"

Oikawa's expression brightens in an instant. The fingers at Iwaizumi's arm loosen, Oikawa's tears vanish with a single blink, and by the time he's clapping his hands and chirping, "I knew I could count on you, Iwa-chan!" his mouth is curving wide on a smile.

 _Really,_ really _going to regret this._ "I didn't say I'd help yet."

"It's nothing very major," Oikawa tells him, turning away to wander down the hallway towards what Iwaizumi assumes is a better space for conversation than the shadows of the entryway. "I just need you to go to a party with me tonight."

Iwaizumi pauses in the middle of working his second shoe off to frown suspicion at the back of Oikawa's shoulders. "That doesn't sound like very much of a crisis. What's the catch?"

"Catch?" Oikawa repeats back, his voice high and bright and impressively near to casual; Iwaizumi would almost believe it, if Oikawa didn't go too far and lift a hand to wave aside Iwaizumi's phrasing with hasty fingers. "There's no catch, it's just a little favor I need, nothing very-"

" _What_."

Oikawa's hand drops, his shoulders sag. As Iwaizumi keeps glaring at him he can see Oikawa take a breath, can hear the other audibly brace himself before he turns around. His expression is softer, now, absent the hectic energy he showed when he opened the door, his eyes darker; Iwaizumi can feel the urge to capitulate like a physical force against his chest, far stronger now than when Oikawa was making a show of his pleading.

"I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend," Oikawa says, all in a rush. His eyes drop, his gaze landing somewhere in the middle of Iwaizumi's shirt as his mouth twists and one hand catches to pull nervously at the edge of his shirt. "There were these girls in one of my classes I was being nice to, and they started asking me to choose between them, so I was trying to get them to back off and I...kind of told them I had a boyfriend." He flinches and ducks his head down farther. Iwaizumi can't even make out the dark smudge of his lashes anymore from before the glossy fall of his tangled hair. "I said he was going to another university when they wanted to meet him, but now they keep asking when my boyfriend's coming to visit, and they're all going to be at this party tonight, and you're here, so I thought…"

"You thought you'd make me accessory to the lie you got yourself into?" Iwaizumi suggests.

Oikawa flinches again. His hand tugs harder at the edge of his shirt. "Yes?"

"Without giving me any warning at all," Iwaizumi clarifies. "Without even a _hello_ after I've spent hours travelling and expecting to spend the evening catching up with my best friend."

"Ah." Oikawa lets his hold on his shirt go. "Hello."

"You could have mentioned this any time over the last _week_ ," Iwaizumi says.

"Yeah."

"You-" Iwaizumi starts, and Oikawa's mouth twists, the corner of it going tight on tension like he's bracing himself for a blow, like he's ready for the rejection Iwaizumi is going to offer, that Iwaizumi _should_ offer if he has the least sense of all. It's a tiny motion, barely visible at all; but it stabs itself into Iwaizumi's chest, knotting hard at the back of his throat to stall out his words, and he goes quiet instead, staring at Oikawa's bowed head and tangled hair and tense mouth. His heart aches, as if there's something pulling at him or like he's finally feeling some need that's been left too-long unattended; and then he sighs, and lets his shoulders slump, and says, "You haven't changed." Oikawa takes a breath bright with the beginnings of hope and lifts his head by an inch to peer at Iwaizumi from under the fall of his hair; Iwaizumi meets him with a scowl, with frustration printed tense across his whole expression as the only kind of resistance he can trust himself to offer. "This is a _terrible_ idea."

"But you'll do it for me," Oikawa finishes for him, lifting his head the rest of the way and beaming delight at Iwaizumi. "I knew I could count on you, Iwa-chan!" And he's throwing himself forward, catching his arms around Iwaizumi's neck as he flings himself bodily against the other. Iwaizumi huffs at the impact, stumbling backwards by a step as one arm lifts reflexively to support Oikawa's weight; he sends a glare sideways at the dark of the other's hair, even if his frustration goes as unseen as it is ignored.

"I can't act at all," he informs Oikawa while the other is still hanging around his neck like he's forgotten he's capable of supporting his own weight. "This is going to be a _disaster_."

"It'll be fine," Oikawa says, and pulls back to push a hand carelessly through his hair and beam bright-eyed delight at the victim he's just made of his best friend. "I'll take care of everything, just pretend that I'm the most beautiful thing in the world to you!"

"Oh my god," Iwaizumi groans, and Oikawa laughs and pivots away to head back down the hallway while he ruffles his hair out of its anxious knots and into the fashionable dishevelment that Iwaizumi is used to seeing. It _is_ longer than it was, Iwaizumi can see the difference clearly in the fall of the soft strands at the back of Oikawa's neck where they're skimming his collar; but his fingers make a presentation of it, turning what would look unkempt on someone else into something stylish and striking. It makes Iwaizumi's chest ache again, with that weird dull pain Oikawa's bowed head brought about as well, and when he moves to follow the other it's with a frown but no further attempt at verbal protest.

He's not about to keep arguing his lack of acting ability. He'd hate for Oikawa to realize how little pretending he'll need to do to succeed at this.

* * *

The party is precisely as bad as Iwaizumi was afraid it would be.

He could see the framework of the night even standing in Oikawa's entryway, while the other still had his overenthusiastic arms wrapped tight around Iwaizumi's neck and was laughing delighted gratitude into his ear. Iwaizumi isn't much for parties to begin with, or at least not those filled with people he doesn't know and will probably never see again, and it's only ever worse to be in attendance with Oikawa, who seems to drink in the glow of the lights and the cheer of the laughter to glow brighter even than he usually does to Iwaizumi's view. Oikawa is always in demand, always smiling his brightest smile and laughing his chirpiest giggle, and Iwaizumi doesn't know what's worse, seeing how bright Oikawa shines for a crowd or seeing how little of _his_ Oikawa he can pick out of that shining mask. The idea of attending in any context is unpleasant to his travel-exhausted thoughts; and then they come in the front door, and Oikawa leads off with "Everyone, this is my boyfriend Iwa-chan!" and Iwaizumi knows the night is going to be even longer than he guessed it would be.

He tries to protest. He gives his full name to every stranger he meets, growling over the syllables with a weight intended to silence Oikawa's laughing insistence on the nickname Iwaizumi refuses to accept from any but his best friend's lips. He tries to fix Oikawa with a glare no less than a half-dozen times, attempting to express via irritated focus what the situation prevents him saying aloud; but Oikawa makes a show of that too, laughs about "how grumpy Iwa-chan is" and makes excuses that "he just wanted to keep me all to himself tonight" with a wink so suggestive Iwaizumi is fairly sure it breaks some law about public decency. That's bad enough, to have a roomful of complete strangers assuming they have an intimacy Iwaizumi knows all too well they don't; but then Oikawa, far from leaving Iwaizumi to his own devices, seems to decide that _boyfriend_ is synonymous with _magnet_ , and refuses to get his hands off Iwaizumi regardless of how the other tries to extricate himself.

"What are you _doing_ ," Iwaizumi hisses finally, when Oikawa's arm is heavy around his shoulders and the weight of the other's fingertips is raising goosebumps at the skin just under his collar. No one is looking their way, for once; even Oikawa's aspiring admirers have given way, if only for the span of a few seconds of peace. "You're being way too obvious, everyone is going to see through this."

"See through what?" Oikawa chirps back, his voice too loud and his eyes too wide. Iwaizumi can see heads turn in his periphery, can see sideways glances cutting towards them to shatter the moment of real privacy they had attained. "Are you that embarrassed by a little PDA?"

Iwaizumi grits his teeth and ducks his chin to glare shadows at Oikawa. " _Oikawa_." It's just that, the one word, with no extra information to make the threat clear; but the tension of laughter at Oikawa's mouth flickers, his gaze drags over Iwaizumi's features, and whatever he sees there is enough to drop his expression to seriousness for a moment.

"Fine," he says, low, just for Iwaizumi's ears, and then louder, brighter, with his smile coming back on like someone's flipped a switch: "Fine, _fine_ Iwa-chan, I see how it you, you just want to monopolize my attention!" Iwaizumi scowls, feels his entire expression going heavy and dark with anger, but Oikawa isn't looking at him; he's looking out at the party, fluttering a hand through the air and laughing his goodbyes as he lets his arm slide from around Iwaizumi's neck so he can grab at the other's wrist instead.

"I'll see you all later!" he calls, sing-songing the words into a needless lilt. "Whenever Iwa-chan is done with me!" And then they're at the front door, and Iwaizumi is moving through it at speed, and Oikawa is pulled nearly off his feet by the force of the other's action.

"Ow!" he yelps as they move through the door, and then Iwaizumi is out of the light and away from their audience and he can shake his arm free of Oikawa's hold before striding down the street at a speed made the greater by the burn of frustration inside his chest.

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa calls from behind him, but his voice is still light, is still shaped around the outline of laughter, and Iwaizumi can't stand to look back at him. "Iwa-chan, wait!" The sound of footsteps, pattering fast enough to form the outline of a run, and: "Iwa-chan," coupled with the touch of fingers at Iwaizumi's sleeve.

Iwaizumi snatches his arm away. "Shut up," he says, still keeping his scowl fixed on the street in front of him. "Don't touch me."

There's a pause. Then footsteps again, falling fast over themselves, and Oikawa's voice stripped bare of any facade. "Hey." Another touch entirely contrary to Iwaizumi's request, the brush of fingers weighting and sliding off his sleeve. "What's wrong?"

Iwaizumi glances sideways. Oikawa's looking at him, his eyes dark in the faint illumination of the streetlamps around them; his smile is gone along with the manic cheer in his expression, until all that's left is the weight of true attention behind the heavy drag of his lashes. Iwaizumi's chest tightens, his heart aches. He looks away again, back to the dark of the pavement in front of his feet.

"Nothing's wrong," he growls. "I just wanted to leave."

"We've left," Oikawa says without sounding convinced. Iwaizumi can feel the other's gaze still lingering on him. "Was it that bad?"

"I don't like parties," Iwaizumi tells the pavement. "And I really don't like pretending to be something I'm not while you flirt with everyone around you."

Oikawa's laugh is a little high, a little bit strained. "Were you jealous?" he asks. "I didn't think you'd want to deal with a long-distance relationship, but if you want I can introduce you to some of my classmates."

"After they've met me as your _boyfriend_?" Iwaizumi snaps, looking back to spit the last word at Oikawa directly. Oikawa's smile is tense, barely holding to the curve of his lips and not making it to his eyes at all; Iwaizumi only manages to look at it for a moment before he ducks his head to turn away again.

"No," he says. "I have my hands full just trying to keep track of you, I don't need the stress of a girlfriend three cities away on top of it."

Oikawa's laugh is bright and brilliant enough to fill up the dark of the night with artificial delight. Iwaizumi doesn't look up to see the other's expression. He doesn't want Oikawa to see the jealousy clear across his face.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Oikawa says, the soft purr of his voice gone tinny and strained over the phone. "I thought they'd let me be after I introduced you, but…"

Iwaizumi shuts his eyes to the bland lines of the ceiling overhead. "When do you need me there?" he says.

He's always been willing to do anything for Oikawa. The only problem now is how to keep Oikawa from figuring that out.

* * *

It would be easier, Iwaizumi decides, if he liked it less.

It's true, the parties he could do without, and the constant breathless attention they both get from the flock of girls that always follow Oikawa like sunlight that can't stand to leave his features unilluminated. But the closer the girls press the more Oikawa hides behind Iwaizumi, the farther his fingers wander, the warmer his breath at Iwaizumi's skin is. Iwaizumi fixes a scowl on his face and holds to it at all costs; by his fourth visit he's become excellent at maintaining the weight of a frown even while Oikawa's lips all but brush his ear with the drag of the other's mock whispering, and at keeping his gaze focused ahead of him instead of shifting with ticklish friction at the drag of soft hair against the side of his neck. Oikawa's arm around his shoulders is a regular weight, Oikawa's fingers in his an everyday burden; soon, Iwaizumi is sure, he'll learn how to ease the rush of his overactive heartbeat, and he'll figure out how to be as blasé about his sideways glances at Oikawa's smile as Oikawa is about the double entendres he delivers to as many feminine titters as there are women within earshot. Iwaizumi's been managing just fine for years of friendship, has made such an art of repression that it's as reflexive an action as breathing; it's just another step up to learn to do it with Oikawa's lashes in his periphery, and Oikawa's touch at his elbow, and Oikawa everpresent, everclose, leaning in at his arm or touching his shoulder or smiling with that focus in his eyes that always somehow manages to look like it's just for Iwaizumi. It's an act, it's a show, Iwaizumi knows it is, knows it by Oikawa's own words; but that thought always comes second, after his heart skids itself out-of-rhythm in his chest and his face flushes hot with self-conscious awareness at the casual touch of Oikawa's fingertips against his wrist.

"I don't believe you," the girl sitting on Oikawa's far side says now, bracing a hand against the couch cushions under them and leaning in nearly close enough to rival the angle Oikawa is making of himself against Iwaizumi's arm. "There's no _way_ you two are childhood friends."

"What?" Iwaizumi says, incredulity cutting in over the bright laugh Oikawa always gives to skepticism like this. "What's not to believe, we just _are_."

"You're not comfortable around each other," the girl's friend says. She's at more of a distance, in one of the chairs turned in to make a circle with the couch, and angry with her position; she's been scowling unseen at her friend every time the other girl's wrist bumps Oikawa's thigh or she reaches to punctuate some statement with fingertips resting against his knee. Iwaizumi frowns at the flirt's friend and she turns her attention to him, meeting him glare-for-glare with what he admits is probably some similar level of frustrated desire to his own. "You barely touch."

"That's ridiculous," Iwaizumi says, and fast, right over him, "I don't know what you're talking about" Oikawa breaks in, ostentatiously shifting the arm he has around Iwaizumi's waist to pull himself in closer. "Iwa-chan can barely keep his hands off me."

The angry one rolls her eyes to the ceiling. " _He's_ the one always trying to push you off," she says. "I've never even seen you two kiss. Dating through high school? That's absurd."

 _Through high school?_ Iwaizumi thinks - apparently Oikawa's fabrication has taken on additional details without the other mentioning it - but before he can cut a glare at the other Oikawa's fingers are closing hard at his hip, and when Oikawa laughs it has the harsh, brittle edge of competition on it, the sound that always makes Iwaizumi think of the nickname the redhead from Karasuno bestowed upon him: _the Great King_ , as if Oikawa is some kind of royalty expecting the world to kneel at his feet.

"You don't have to take my word for it," he says, and Iwaizumi can feel the certainty of responsibility settle against his spine, as if he's catching Oikawa's glance from across the width of a volleyball court as a silent sign for the game-winning toss that is to come. "Come on, Iwa-chan, shall we show them how it's done?"

Iwaizumi looks sideways, his mouth pulling down into a frown of confusion. "Show them how _what's_ done?"

"I can't believe you're going to let that insult to our affection stand," Oikawa says, which is enough of a non-answer to heighten Iwaizumi's sense of danger beyond even what the dark pleading in the other's eyes would do alone. "Come on, Iwa-chan, can't I get just one little kiss?" He purses his lips, and flutters his lashes, and the girl at his far side dissolves into delighted giggles but the other one is still watching them, with her arms folded over her chest now, and Iwaizumi would glare her off but he can't look away from Oikawa's expression, can't catch his breath when it feels like his heart has dropped into freefall.

"No," he says, but it's too soft, it's borne down to silence by the weight of the audience they have. "Not here."

 _Not like this,_ he wants to say. _Don't ask me to pretend with this._

"Aww," Oikawa pouts, and he's still laughing but his eyes are dark, his gaze is focused on Iwaizumi, his entire expression is spelling out _I'm trusting you_ and Iwaizumi can't turn his back on that, he can't look aside even for his own self-preservation. He can feel his jaw setting, can feel the ache of pressure running up to throb in his temples, and in front of him Oikawa is leaning in closer, is dipping his lashes to cast his gaze into the seductive weight Iwaizumi has only ever seen secondhand, before now. "Don't you love me, Iwa-chan?"

It's too much. It was too much even that first day, too much when Oikawa's lips formed the shape of _boyfriend_ with all the offhand dismissal that cut Iwaizumi's aching heart right to the quick with rejection of what he can never have, of what Oikawa will treat as a joke before he even considers the possibility. Iwaizumi has tried, and tried, and tried, he's spent years of his life resisting uncounted impulses to act, to speak, to finally come clean about his feelings; and in the end it's this, of course it is, because when Oikawa asks Iwaizumi has never been able to refuse him anything.

Iwaizumi moves quickly. Oikawa's mouth is still curved on that put-on pout, his eyes are still smokey with mock intensity when Iwaizumi lifts his hand from the couch between them and reaches to grab at the soft of the other's hair. His fingers fit against the silky soft of the locks, the strands catch and curl against his skin, and he's growling "Of course I do" just as Oikawa blinks himself into sincerity, just as Oikawa's mouth starts to come open on silent surprise, or maybe protest Iwaizumi doesn't give him a chance to voice. He's leaning in instead, his fingers spreading wide to catch and brace Oikawa still right where he is, and then Iwaizumi is doing what he has wanted to do for unmeasured years, and is crushing his mouth against Oikawa's. The other's lips are soft, they give way to the force of his mouth like flowerpetals to the weight of fingertips, and Iwaizumi can feel the startled hiss of an inhale Oikawa takes against his cheek; but he doesn't open his eyes, he doesn't let reality settle back in around him, because Oikawa will know, after this, and Iwaizumi wants to push off that realization as long as he can. He could still pull away, maybe, could still pass this off as part of the game, if he moves away now; but he can't, not in himself, he knew he would never be able to wrench himself free of Oikawa's lips once he had tasted them. He's reaching out instead, with a second hand as well as his first, his fingers slipping and catching to brace at Oikawa's shoulder, and he's leaning in harder, pushing Oikawa back against the resistance of the girl sitting next to him, the girl Iwaizumi doesn't think of even when she yelps half-formed protest. He can barely hear her over the rush of his heartbeat and the sound of Oikawa's breathing; his attention is tangled into the soft of Oikawa's hair under his touch, and the warmth of the lips against his own, and the shiver of almost-sweet on his tongue, like a trace of the peppermint candies Oikawa was eating a few minutes before. He chases the taste across his mouth and past his lips, touches his tongue to the soft give of Oikawa's lips under his; and catches sound at his mouth instead of taste, feels the vibration of a whimper as Oikawa's mouth shifts against his. There's movement against him, fingers dragging against his shirt as Oikawa's hand braces at his chest; and Iwaizumi comes back to himself all at once, pulling away in a rush as if to undo what he's already done, like diving to receive a volleyball that's already bounced off the court.

"Woah," one of the girls says, sounding a little bit breathless and more warm than she should. "That was…" but Iwaizumi isn't listening to her, isn't paying any attention to anyone else in the room except for Oikawa: the soft of Oikawa's grown-out hair under his fingers and the shift of Oikawa's shoulder under his grip, the damp collecting against the part of Oikawa's flushed lips and the heavy dip of lashes as he opens his eyes, as he blinks his hazy gaze into focus on Iwaizumi's face. For a moment they stare at each other, Iwaizumi's breath stalled in his chest and Oikawa's eyes darker than Iwaizumi has ever seen them, like they're yet clinging to the shadows under the heavy weight of his lashes. Then Oikawa blinks, and takes a breath to speak; and Iwaizumi's courage gives way all at once.

"I have to go," he says all in a rush, retreat given the form of too-hasty words, and he's shoving himself away at once, pushing at Oikawa's shoulder to hold the other back even as he surges to his feet in delayed-reaction response to the weight of Oikawa's touch at his chest. He can't have this conversation here, like this, with all the evidence of his secret affection still flushing to heat against Oikawa's lips and two too-curious audience members for the revelation; he barely wants to have it at all, if he can help it. He moves towards the door at once, striding with determination and focusing on the sound of his heartbeat instead of the voices or the scrambling sound of movement behind him; by the time the door falls shut he's halfway to the sidewalk and moving fast, half-hoping Oikawa will let this go as he has never let anything else go before.

There's always a first time for everything, after all.

* * *

Oikawa catches up quickly.

"Iwa-chan!" Desperate, over-loud; it makes Iwaizumi cringe as much with the echo of the sound in the night-quiet street as with the immediate surrender his body wants to give, the way his feet want to halt and his shoulders want to turn to look back. "Iwa-chan, _wait_!"

"No," Iwaizumi says, almost to himself, his shoulders hunching, his heart pounding. "Not this time."

"Iwa-chan!" Higher still, skidding out against Oikawa's vocal range; and then: " _Hajime_ ," so strained it sounds like a sob, and Iwaizumi's feet go as still as if he's never moved before in all his life, as if he's become a statue with just the sound of Oikawa's voice tearing to desperation over his name. He stares at the dark of the street in front of him, feels his skin go cold with the inevitability of this confrontation; and then there's a hand at his sleeve, familiar fingers closing against his arm, and "I'm sorry," Oikawa blurts, almost before he's tightened his hold at Iwaizumi's arm. "Iwa-chan, god, I'm _so_ sorry."

This isn't how Iwaizumi expected this conversation to go. He blinks, frowns, turns his head; Oikawa's standing close to him, his head bowed and shoulders trembling with the force of his breathing, but his grip on Iwaizumi's sleeve isn't easing at all. Iwaizumi can see the undone laces of his shoes tangled around his ankles, the loose ties speaking as much to Oikawa's haste as his panic-fast breath does.

"I should have told you," Oikawa says without lifting his head or easing his hold. "I'm sorry. It was a stupid plan. I was stupid. I just wanted to pretend, for a little bit." His fingers flex, pressing painful for a moment before they ease. Oikawa exhales some sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I should have just told you and gotten myself shot down properly."

Iwaizumi stares at the top of Oikawa's bowed head, struggling and failing to gain any traction on the subject of their conversation. "What?"

"I just wanted a kiss," Oikawa says, blurting the words in a rush to his undone shoelaces. "Just one. I thought you'd go along with it, if it was just for show, and then I could at least know what it was like instead of just imagining it." His head ducks down farther. There's a streetlight just behind him; Iwaizumi can see the way the glow of the light catches at the back of Oikawa's neck and brightens his skin to late-night gold.

Oikawa takes a breath. Iwaizumi can see it shift in his shoulders, can see the force of the exhale drain the tension from Oikawa's spine to leave him smoother, fluid, like he's fitting the sharp edges of his stress back inside the confines of his body. By the time he lifts his head again real-Oikawa is all but gone behind the careful weight of his usual mask; it's only because Iwaizumi knows to look for the shadows behind the other's eyes that he doesn't completely buy the act.

"Sorry," Oikawa says again, his mouth dragging up sharply at the corner into a laugh too self-deprecating to clear the dark from his eyes. "It was a stupid idea from the start. Guess I'm not that great at strategy off the court."

Iwaizumi's chest is aching. His heart has skipped into doubletime in his chest, is rattling against his ribcage like it's trying to break free of the restraints he's always put on it, like the magnetism of Oikawa's eyes is finally undoing the lock he's tried so hard to keep latched for all these years.

"Yeah," Iwaizumi says, and his voice sounds strange in his ears and he doesn't try to fix it. "You're a real idiot, Tooru." Oikawa's lashes dip, his eyes going wide as his forced smile goes slack with the shocked beginnings of understanding; but Iwaizumi doesn't wait to watch realization break over Oikawa's face, doesn't wait to see the surprised softness of the other's mouth curve back up into an understanding smile. He's reaching out for Oikawa's too-long hair instead, sliding his fingers back into the pale waves that are always, always softer than they have any right to be, and this time, when he fits his mouth to Oikawa's, the only audience they have is each other.

It's better this way. Iwaizumi's never been a very good actor, anyway.


End file.
